Dialing in your MEDDICC sales process map and in Salesforce

Detailed Salesforce build below the paywall

Today we’re walking through a MEDDICC-fueled sales setup in Salesforce. The Youtube video above is just an example and I’ll provide the build components for paid users down at the bottom of the article. If you like what you saw please subscribe to the channel. Thanks!

Dialing in your sales process map and in Salesforce

How many times have you logged into a Salesforce instance to find the following as your sales stages?

• Prospecting

• Qualification

• Needs Analysis

• Value Proposition

• Decision Makers

• Perception Analysis

• Proposal/Price Quote

• Negotiation/Review.

FWIW these are the standard opportunity stage names out of Salesforce. Hardly ever do you see instances maintain these stages as their own. A new sales leader comes into the company and suggests a major project: “let’s change the sales stages!”

Oooooooh. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

Companies believe they are special. So special that Salesforce itself needs to be customized to fit its needs. Sales stages serve as a cornerstone of pipeline management.

Why?

Because sales managers should be able to helicopter into any pipeline and be able to assess the following:

• Pipeline size

• Pipeline shape

• Momentum probability

• Areas of coachability

And often times sales leaders lean on what they know. They reference what worked (or didn’t) for them at their last company or companies. They lean on that experience. I’d argue the sales stages are indeed important but they should be crafted thoughtfully with the following:

• A process map

• A governance framework

• An enforcement cadence

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Process Map

Developing Sales Stages means that the buyer’s journey is mapped out. There’s no other place where this is demonstrated more so than its sales stages. Philosophically, customer centricity can better be displayed throughout the relationship built between the sales team and the prospect than the naming conventions of stages.

Sales stages designed well will have key characteristics such as:

• Purpose

• Who quarterbacks this stage

• Seller interaction type

• Entry criteria

• Exit criteria

• Stage weighted probability

• Average time

• Next steps

• Closed lost reasons

Here’s how that might look:

Sales Stages

Here’s a sample sales process that aligns with the MEDDICC framework:

• Qualification: Determine if the prospect meets the fundamental criteria to engage in a sales process.

• Discovery: Uncover the prospect’s pain points, needs, and business objectives.

• Solution Alignment: Demonstrate how your product or service addresses the identified needs and creates measurable impact.

• Proposal / Validation: Formalize the proposed solution and validate fit with economic and technical buyers.

• Negotiation / Review: Finalize pricing, terms, and address remaining objections.

• Closed Won: Deal is finalized, and customer transitions into onboarding.

Three-Step Sales Process (High Level)

The diagram shows three distinct customer phases:

• Prospecting: Focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of generating qualified pipeline from direct sales sources (inbound and outbound). Partners and referrals are excluded to simplify the diagram above.

• Sales Process: The formalized set of steps which the sales team(s) engage with a prospect to successfully sign on as a customer.

• Customer Onboarding: The parallel and sequential processes in which the implementation or professional services teams engage with the new customer to successfully onramp to your product.

For those unfamiliar with MEDDICC.

MEDDICC is a widely used sales qualification framework that helps sales teams evaluate and manage complex B2B sales opportunities. It provides a structured approach to understanding a deal's potential and increasing the chances of closing it successfully. There is also the original MEDDIC variation as well as MEDDPICC. Highly suggest you understand these variations.

Shout out to Andy Whyte’s Medium for this image

MEDDICC Breakdown

Each letter in MEDDICC represents a key component of the qualification process:

1. M - Metrics:

   • The measurable economic impact of your solution.

   • Helps quantify the value proposition (e.g., cost savings, revenue increase).

2. E - Economic Buyer:

   • The person with final decision-making power and budget authority.

   • Understanding their priorities and how they define success is crucial.

3. D - Decision Criteria:

   • The formal criteria the buyer uses to evaluate vendors.

   • Can include technical requirements, price, ROI, and compliance factors.

4. D - Decision Process:

   • The step-by-step process the customer follows to make a purchase decision.

   • Includes approvals, legal reviews, and procurement steps.

5. I - Identify Pain:

   • The business challenges or pain points driving the need for your solution.

   • The stronger the pain, the higher the urgency to buy.

6. C - Champion:

   • An internal advocate who supports your solution and influences the decision-makers.

   • Helps navigate internal politics and push the deal forward.

7. C - Competition:

   • Understanding who you are competing against and how to differentiate your solution.

   • Helps craft a strategy to position your offering as the best choice.

Many sales teams, especially in enterprise and SaaS sales, adopt MEDDICC (or variations like MEDDPICC, which adds P for Paper Process) to ensure they focus on high-quality deals with a structured sales approach.

In the video above you will see a very quick video of the sales stage breakdown. Here is the corresponding sales process map. Below are a few details you may want to consider:

Instrumenting Salesforce

Validation rules

1. Validation rules enforcing fields (exit criteria) between Qualification and Discovery stage

2. Validation rules enforcing fields (exit criteria) between Discovery and Solution Alignment stage

3. Validation rules enforcing fields (exit criteria) between Solution Alignment and Proposal / Validation stage

4. Validation rules enforcing fields (exit criteria) between Proposal / Validation and Negotiation stage

5. Validation rules enforcing fields (exit criteria) between Negotiation / Review and Closed Won stage

6. Validation rule preventing opportunities moving backwards (this is a contentious one!)

7. Validation rule preventing opportunities reopening after moving to either Closed Won or Closed Lost

Custom fields

See the process map to get a sense for fields to consider

Sales Path

In Salesforce, a Sales Path (also called a Path) is a guided selling tool that helps sales teams follow a structured process when moving deals through different sales stages. It provides step-by-step guidance on how to advance opportunities, ensuring reps stay aligned with best practices.

Key Features of a Sales Path in Salesforce

1. Stage-Based Guidance: Displays key fields and recommended actions for each stage of the Opportunity, Lead, or other custom objects.

2. Customization: Admins can define different paths for different record types to align with various sales processes.

3. Best Practices & Tips: Offers stage-specific guidance, such as links to resources, common objections, or next steps.

4. Visibility: Helps reps quickly understand where a deal stands and what needs to be done to progress it.

5. Integration with Lightning Experience: Fully available in Salesforce Lightning as a visual tool to streamline pipeline management.

Here is an example of the path in Salesforce for the Qualification stage. As you can see it hosts fields to fill out on the left as opposed to having to click down into the detail section below.

Also here is another view in another stage. I highly suggest linking back to your Sales process documentation in your internal notion/wiki/google page/confluence/whatever-you-use. I also highly suggest adding Exit Criteria.

For paid members I detail the build out for you in this specifications below.